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Tread Marks

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Tread Marks
Original author(s)Seumas McNally
Developer(s)Longbow Digital Arts
Initial release14 January 2000; 24 years ago (2000-01-14)[1]
Stable release
1.7.0 / 20 January 2017; 7 years ago (2017-01-20)
Repositorygithub.com/LongbowGames/TreadMarks
Operating systemWindows
PlatformMicrosoft Windows
TypeSingle Player, Online Multiplayer Tank Combat/Racing
LicenseGPLv3
Websitehttp://www.treadmarks.com (archived at the Internet Archive)

Tread Marks is a 3D, third-person perspective, multiplayer-focused tank combat and racing computer game developed by Independent video game developer Longbow Digital Arts. The game won the 2000 Independent Games Festival grand prize, later renamed to the Seumas McNally Grand Prize in honor of the game's lead programmer Seumas McNally who died on 21 March 2000, after receiving the award.[2][3] A notable feature of the game is fully deformable terrain.

Gameplay

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The tanks come in two varieties: steel and liquid. The steel tanks resemble real-life tanks, while the liquid types are whimsical fantasy tanks. Weapons and power-ups are scattered around the maps, and range in destructive power from light machine guns to tactical nuclear missiles.

The game features three gameplay modes:

  • Race mode, in which tanks must race around an off-road course while attempting to stop other tanks from completing the course. Common techniques include using the in-game weapons to attack opponents and using physical tank contact to temporarily 'push' opponents off the course.
  • Battle mode (deathmatch, or DM), in which the tank or team with the most kills win as soon as the global kill or time limit is reached.
  • Capture the Flag mode (CTF) in which there are two or more teams of tanks that compete by trying to capture one of the other team's flags.

The race and battle modes can be played in either team or single-player mode. Tread Marks can be played over a LAN, or over the Internet and includes a program for running a dedicated game server, which lists the computer it runs from on the master server. The master server in turn is operated by Longbow Digital Arts from a location in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[4] Many modifications can be found online, including new maps, tanks, and weapons.

History

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Development

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The game was developed by Seumas McNally and uses OpenGL to render its 3D graphics and the Miles Sound System for positional sound. A notable feature is the in-game deformable terrain which doesn't harm performance. For instance, a nuclear missile explosion creates a huge black crater in the terrain, while its "opposite", the Matterbomb, creates a huge mountain on the terrain. For the in-game deformable terrain a Binary-Triangle Tree-based dynamic view dependent level of detail height field renderer was utilized.

Open Sourcing

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On January 20, 2017 the game was released as freeware and the source code as open-source under the GPLv3 license on GitHub.[5][6] For enhanced cross platform portability, the Miles Sound System was replaced with OpenAL, and the platform dependent Win32 API code with SFML and Qt. A port to Linux and MacOS is in progress.[7] In September 2017 a version for the Linux-based OpenPandora was released.[8]

Reception

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At the time of release, the game received above-average reviews according to the review aggregation website GameRankings.[9]

It won the 2000 Independent Games Festival grand prize, later renamed to the Seumas McNally Grand Prize in honor of the game's lead programmer who died on 21 March 2000, after receiving the award.[2][3] It was also nominated for the "Best Independent PC Game" award at The Electric Playground's Blister Awards 2000, which went to Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord.[17]

References

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  1. ^ "Tread Marks News". Tread Marks. Longbow Digital Arts. Archived from the original on February 29, 2000.
  2. ^ a b "Seumas died today". Longbow Digital Arts. 21 March 2000. Archived from the original on 27 April 2007.
  3. ^ a b "In Memory of Seumas McNally". GameDev.net. Archived from the original on 16 February 2007.
  4. ^ "Treadmarks [sic]". Longbow Digital Arts. Archived from the original on 29 January 2007.
  5. ^ Yorgason, Rick (20 January 2017). "Tread Marks 1.7.0 now free and open source!". Longbow Digital Arts. Archived from the original on 11 February 2017.
  6. ^ "TreadMarks". GitHub. 6 December 2021.
  7. ^ sago007 (3 October 2020). "TreadMarks". GitHub.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ ptitSeb (23 September 2017). "Tread Marks". Official Pyra and Pandora Site.
  9. ^ a b "Tread Marks (2000) for PC". GameRankings. CBS Interactive. Archived from the original on 9 June 2019. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  10. ^ Lackey, Alan (1 February 2000). "Tread Marks". Computer Games Strategy Plus. Strategy Plus, Inc. Archived from the original on 9 April 2003. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  11. ^ Harris, Neil (8 August 2000). "Tread Marks". The Electric Playground. Greedy Productions. Archived from the original on 30 April 2001. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  12. ^ Howarth, Robert (1 February 2000). "REVIEW for Treadmarks [sic]". GameFan. Shinno Media. Archived from the original on 11 May 2000. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  13. ^ "Tread Marks". GameStar (in German). Webedia. March 2000.
  14. ^ Jojic, Uros (14 March 2000). "Tread Marks". IGN. Ziff Davis. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  15. ^ Osborn, Joe (April 2000). "Tread Marks". PC Accelerator. No. 20. Imagine Media. p. 72. Retrieved 17 June 2021.
  16. ^ Woods, Dave (April 2000). "Treadmarks [sic]". PC Zone. No. 88. Dennis Publishing. p. 90. Retrieved 18 June 2021.
  17. ^ EP staff (2001). "Blister Awards 2000 (PC Games 2)". The Electric Playground. Greedy Productions Ltd. Archived from the original on 18 August 2001. Retrieved 10 January 2024.
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